Some images have shown up on the Instagram account of a Sofie Flash, who appears to have been an extra for a new Modest Mouse video that was being shot approximately 2 weeks ago.

The images seem to closely relate to the concept Isaac described in the BuzzFeed interview back in March, in which he mentioned he wanted to make a video in the Tillamook State Forest with Crispen Glover for "Pistol" (references to Glover seem to have been removed from that article now though).

Thanks to Dani for tracking these down. See more of Sofie Flash's photographs below.

No word yet on what the official street date of this item is, but it could be to coincide with the release of Strangers to Ourselves this coming week.

It has also being reported that Strangers to Ourselves is being listed on Amazon Japan with a bonus track. The product page doesn't state the tracklist at all or make mention of what the bonus track may be, and it's listed by a third party seller, so be weary of this one until there's a more official announcement.

It has been pointed out that the download codes that come with the LP version of Strangers to Ourselves, while at present to not permit one to download the actual album, do allow you to download what appear to be snippets of "commentary" on each track.

The tracks are all under a minute, some feature weird sound effects, some background singing, while a distorted Isaac rambles over the top of them. Sometimes not even about the song at all. Some do seem to fade off like there could be more, so these might just be previews of full commentary tracks that may be released along with the album on March 17th.

HMV.com has an interview with Isaac Brock coming out tomorrow, and as a teaser they've posted two quotes from the article.

Regarding the band's future plans he said "I'm pretty far along with the next one as it is. I went in to making this one with two records in mind." As to when it will be available, he added "It'll be released as quickly as it's legally allowed to be. It's a partner to this one."

For those of you that haven't been following the boards, as of late last week Strangers to Ourselves has been finding its ways into the hands of international customers, and apparently even being made available for sale in Austria, so scans of the artwork making their way online. Something that was noticed is that the artwork makes reference to the album being "The Golden Casket Vol. I," meaning volume II could be what Isaac is referencing. Also taking in to account that he and Jeremiah mentioned in their Relix interview last week that 35-37 songs came out of these sessions.

Update, 3/3 9:27 AM PST: Overnight the band's website has now also added a date for June 30th in Berlin, DE. No ticketing information though.

It was performed earlier today on SiriusXMU, now Modest Mouse have uploaded a streaming version of the new track and last song on the album, "Of Course We Know." Stream the new track at the bottom of this post.

This is presumed to be the last song they will release before the album comes out in two weeks. The track is now also available to purchase from iTunes and other mp3 sites.

The band also expanded on their tour, adding more dates across the United States and the United Kingdom. See the full list below.

Lastly, Portland Monthly Mag has done a short piece on Tucker Martine, one of the producers on the new album. Martine has worked with R.E.M. and The Decemberists, and explains his role on the album is that of a "fixer," "helping front man Isaac Brock find his way out of the labyrinth created by years of recording and reconnect with the rawness of some of the band's demos."

In what seems to be a repeating pattern, iTunes is now displaying a track length for another song off Strangers to Ourselves.

The last track on the album, "Of Course we Know," apparently has a length of 5 minutes and 22 seconds. This very closely matches the time listed by Hastings almost two weeks ago, which is now also being displayed on various other online retailers.

If the pattern is correct, we should be hearing the song on the radio at some point this coming Monday, with the track being released digitally later that evening or Tuesday, depending on your timezone. This originally would have been the release date for Strangers to Ourselves. With the album now coming out on March 17, this will likely be the last track to be released in this promotional fashion.

Update, 2/12 3:47 PM PST: SiriusXMU have informed us that the new song will now be aired on Monday, around noon.

Sam G, and others, have informed us that SiriusXMU (channel 35) has been announcing today that they will be premiering a new Modest Mouse song tomorrow. No time has been mentioned. It's presumed that this will be "The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box", a track which earlier this week had it's run time displayed on iTunes to be 6:10. This may also indicate that the track may be available for purchase or to those that pre-ordered the album next week Tuesday.

Next, the band has also been added to the Open'er Festival in Poland. Modest Mouse were due to perform at the festival in 2013, before that entire European tour was scrapped, so this will now be the band's first performance in that country. The Open'er Festival show is to take place on July 1st. This is good news for the Europeans, as it is the second European festival to announce that Modest Mouse will be performing over there in June/July. However the European dates are also the only ones so far not confirmed on ModestMouse.com.

Lastly: Hastings, a media retailer in the US, has posted track times on their listing for "Strangers to Ourselves". I won't post them all again, you can just see them here, but this would bring the album running time to somewhere in the 57 minute and 10 second area.

There's also a new rumoured date on April 17 in Ithaca, NY, but that has yet to be confirmed. Same goes for the Firefly Festival in Dover, DE, in June. June is looking like a strange month as there's already a single European date in Denmark there...

Update, 2/10 1:05 PM PST: @NKJones724 has pointed out that iTunes is listing The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box as 6:10 (side note: is this the next track to be made available?).

Potential track times for all the songs on Strangers to Ourselves have shown up online. No way yet to tell if these are real, so for now we'll file this under "rumours," but if so, this would bring the total running time of the album to approximately 61 minutes and 28 seconds. The information also indicates which tracks are on which side of the LP version.

In what may be a similar pattern to what happened with Coyotes, it has been pointed out that multiple sites selling the digital copy of Strangers to Ourselves are now listing the track time for Track 14 as 4:24 along with a release date of February 3rd.

Based on the track time this could be Sugar Boats, Pistol, or a track we have yet to hear.

The new album was also discussed briefly on NPR's All Songs Considered this past week, with host Robin Hilton mentioning that he's heard the entire album, called it "classic Modest Mouse", and that you wouldn't believe 8 years has past. Listen to the discussion at around the 6 min mark here.

Also, if you don't follow us on Facebook or Twitter, and live in the area of Louisville, KY, the band has been added to Forecastle Festival. That puts a good 4.5 months between the only know tour dates at the moment. The band usually likes to do some warm up dates around festivals, so there's lots of space here for dates, should the band be doing the festival circuit this summer. The band is also listed as an act on a leaked lineup for Firefly Music Festival in Dover, DE (June 18 - 21), but that has yet to be confirmed.

Now we finally have news on their first performance for 2015. The band will be headlining the Gasparilla Music Festival on March 7th in Tampa, FL. Just a few days after the release of the album. Tickets for the festival are already on sale. This will also be the band's first performance in Tampa in 11 years.

Hopefully this is just the first of tour dates to be announced. Modest Mouse usually likes to do a few warm up dates before a festival.

It's also been pointed out by @horriblezone, that on Amazon.com's page for the digital album, track 7 has been updated to include the length of 3:30 (this is also showing on iTunes), and an availability date of January 20th. This could potentially be the next single and its release date. It is a Tuesday, the optimal time to release things in the music world. Rumour for now, but we'll be keeping an eye on it.

UPDATE:Revolt.tv has apparently heard back from a rep at Epic, and the album is apparently due out the first quarter of 2015.

Modest Mouse posted their first photograph to Instagram this morning, which appears to be a potential test pressing of a 7" for the track Lampshades On Fire. This means this track could be the first single from the new album.

Lampshades On Fire is the oldest of the batch of new songs that has become part of Modest Mouse's live sets, first making its debut on 2011/05/26.

UPDATE: Looks like the single has been distributed to radio stations and will be making a debut this Monday. What's interesting to note, is that this looks like Modest Mouse is still signed to Epic.

Having just cancelled their European tour last week to work on their new album, Modest Mouse's website has been update to include two new dates for what would have been the month after that tour ended.

The band will be heading to Malaysia for the first time, to perform at the Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur on August 17, before heading back State side where a new date has been added before what was their only remaining tour date left in Reno on August 24. The Reno date also provided a definite date for the First City Festival. The band now seems locked to be performing on the second night of that one, on August 25.

The timing of these dates could be positive, with the band perhaps finishing up recording before August and then hitting the road while the album is being mastered, for an early 2014 release.

The homepage of modestmouse.com seems to have been replaced with an image of static. The rest of the old site is still there if you hit any of the old links. Could be an indication of a new site coming soon.

Something else that has come up today, but doesn't seem to have been confirmed yet; Rock City in Nottingham has posted this on their Facebook page:

Modest Mouse:
"After much thought, we have decided to cancel our EU/UK tour to continue work on our forthcoming album. We do appreciate our fans and promise that we will make it up to you next year.

Refunds will be available at the point of purchase.

We look forward to sharing our new music with the world next year."

So far they're the only one announcing this. With Europe only waking up in a few hours, we're hoping to start get official word from the other venues and festivals.

Without trying to sound like an ungrateful fan stamping his feet and asking where that new album is (which seems to the common occurrence every time Modest Mouse makes a post on Facebook), we would like to point out that this is the longest gap so far between albums. If you don't take No One's First, And You're Next, as it's an EP and featured mostly old material.

With We Were Dead reaching this milestone, we thought we'd take this moment to recap and speculate on some of the recent activities of the band and its members, in the hopes of stirring up some discussion or perhaps someone filling us in on some news we're not aware of:

The band as a whole: After performing a mammoth 119 known shows in 2007, the performances cut to about a half of that for 2008, 2009 and 2010, before performing only 15 shows last year. This year doesn't seem to be off to anything different, with the only dates having past and set for the future being festivals.

One could be optimistic and see this as them spending more time in the studio working, or maybe they're just taking a break. I'm all for not rushing things. However with so little new material having been debuted live, I would think it's closer to the latter.

While the band has been notoriously shy from giving interviews in the past few years, when they have strangely there has been mention of a new album being practically finished, only to have the same story repeated a year later. A lot has happened since, Johnny Marr did leave the band, and who knows how that may have affected any of the material that he may have contributed to.

Even the sessions with Big Boi occurred almost one year ago, although it seems to have been made out that that was more of an experiment than anything.

So far the only new material floating around are the songs that have been performed live. The two that have had the most oration being Lampshades On Fire and Poison The Well. Another potential song is the untitled track performed at The Warfield, unofficially titled "Mexico". Lastly there is the untitled track that made an appearance at the end of the Don't Move Here episode.

Isaac Brock: Recently, apart from playing the few last minute surprise solo shows, the only other project Isaac potentially has on the go is the writing of the Queens Of Country soundtrack. Which was also announced about a year ago, and has since not been mentioned again. The film is finally due out at the end of this month, and while Isaac is still mentioned as the composer on IMDB, the lack of updates around this make me think he's no longer involved. We attempted to contact the producers of the film, but did not receive a reply. Hopefully with the release just around the corner, we should get some closure to this soon.

Jeremiah Green: The once side project busy Jeremiah, has also been quiet of late. At least perhaps quiet to news sources. After multiple World Gang releases early last year, this work seems to have slowed down since releasing that live album last June.

Eric Judy: Eric hasn't performed with the band live since 2011/07/02. Not that the band has performed that much since then. Rumours are rife that he has left the band. Personally I don't believe it, Eric does have young children, and could be taking a break from touring. We have tried to contact the band and certain members about his status, but haven't heard anything.

Jim Fairchild: Jim will be returning to perform some dates with the reunited Grandaddy. A question to maybe ask is, depending on the outcome there, will he perhaps not return should they decide to take things further?

Joe Plummer: A lot of updates lately have been revolving around Joe, now that he is with The Shins. They have a new album out as of today (coincidence?), and he will be touring full time with them. As with Jim, a question to ask, is does this mean Joe is perhaps done with his time in Modest Mouse, or when his work with The Shins calms down, will he be returning?

Pat Graham: Lastly, Pat Graham is still awesome, and we miss him and his updates on the band.

The first is a brief posting in their new feature Inbox, where Pitchfork's writers and editors field reader emails.

Nik Kapetanakis writes in under the subject "Desperately Seeking Modest Mouse", asking if it would be possible to do an in-depth interview with Modest Mouse. Pitchfork writes back with a semi cryptic response, that if you like the band, and you liked the documentary Pitchfork.tv did for the Flaming Lips' album The Soft Bulletin, that something related may be appearing in the near future. This leads to the possibility that Pitchfork.tv may be doing a piece focusing on a Modest Mouse album.

It would be super awesome if you guys did an in-depth video interview with Modest Mouse-- I am a huge fan, so pardon my maybe-far-fetched suggestion. --Nik Kapetanakis

The second article, mentions that Jim Fairchild's former band, Grandaddy, are reuniting for some shows this year. The only one set in stone at the moment is on September 2 at Dorset, England's End of the Road Festival.

While this is more than likely a temporary arrangement, it could potentially overlap with any future Modest Mouse tour dates, if any are planned for later in the year. Not that that would probably affect anything, as Modest Mouse is pretty good with swapping out members temporarily. Jim has also stated in the past, that he doesn't seem to be too involved in the recording process, if the band happens to be recording at the time... who knows, all speculation really.

The Governors Ball Music Festival is taking place on June 23 and 24 at Randall's Island in New York, NY. This is the same weekend that Modest Mouse is confirmed to be performing at Metallica's Orion Music + More festival in nearby Atlantic City.

The Governors Ball will be announcing its full lineup on February 21. Until then, they have started dropping hints on their Facebook page. Including one today of a cartoon mouse being modest, making it look very likely that Modest Mouse will be performing at that festival as well.

If this turns out to be true, it definitely looks like Modest Mouse will only be performing on one day at the Orion Music + More festival. So be careful when buying tickets there, if you weren't planning on going for the whole weekend.

While we don't condone this, this past weekend a Portland resident/fan, knocked
on Isaac Brock's front door and managed to have a short conversation with him
as well as "other member's of the band".

Not much seems have been learnt about a new album, but Isaac did apprently
mention that he is working on a Buddy Holly cover, and that it is almost finished.
No idea what that could be for, but hopefully it will go further than the Lee
Hazlewood covers that Isaac was working on with Frank Black back in 2008, which
to our knowledge, were never released.

An article in the latest Rolling Stone magazine reveals lots of details regarding the planning of Heath Ledger's King Rat video. Isaac talks about his meetings with Ledger and the additional work that Terry Gilliam provided. He also talks about his last encounter with Ledger during a brake from shooting The Dark Knight.

Towards the end of the article, Isaac also talks about his work with the Shins' James Mercer on the 180 Degrees South documentary. It then goes on to mention that:

And the follow-up to 2007's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank should be finished in the next six months, with the band road-testing some of the material on its current tour. "It'll take some effort," Brock says. "But that will make it more fun."

Now Modest Mouse has never been one to stick to any kind of release timeline, their albums have always been delayed, but as of today no new material has been performed on the current tour so far. Hopefully things will change before the tour is over and then this quote will make more sense.

Some people over at ModMouse.com have been able to talk to band members after some of the shows and have learned things that seem to support this. In Montreal Eric stated that the they are planning on working on a new album once this tour is over, that they are planning an east coast tour and that he doesn't think Johnny Marr will be returning.

allmusic.com has added an entry for Autumn Beds, stating that this new single will be coming out on June 23. No word on what it's b-side will be.

Hopefully this will turn out to be true. After the month delay of the Satellite Skin single, and the lack of updates that came with it, fans seem to be concerned that the new EP will be pushed back from it's tentative August 4 release date.

A vinyl rep for Record Store Day in Nashville has stated that the Satellite Skin 7" was delayed, because the vinyl wasn't the specific shade of Orange that Isaac had in mind (This made Isaac mad. Very mad! You've seen Isaac mad right? He gets his grump on). The rep said the 7" will now be "available" on May 19. Thanks to Rocky for this rumour.

Remember back in April 2007 Isaac mentioned in an interview that Heath Ledger wanted to make a music video for King Rat with the help of Terry Gilliam?

Well a lot of things have happened since then. Primarily the sad passing of Heath Ledger in January 2008 and secondly, no word from the band if it was even happening.

Last week Pitchfork ran an article recapping the story and stating that "The status of the "King Rat" video is currently unknown."

Spin ran a similar article the following day however, stating that "No specific date has been set for the release, which is expected to happen soon."

I didn't put much stock into this at first, figuring that the one was merely misquoting the other. But as of this morning www.modestmousemusic.com is now linking to the Spin article... does this mean there's a chance that the video will surface?

In other news, the early August release date for the new EP now appears to be August 4.

Not only did MC manage to get his hands on the name of the new song from last night's show, but he also managed to track down Isaac in a park next to the venue before the show started. Isaac described the tour as "it's just something to do." And on the subject of the EP... "a couple weeks from now, two songs will be released."